LTRP Note: The following is the third installment (see:
part one,
part two) that we are posting of Warren Smith's new book, A
"Wonderful" Deception. We hope you have find the chance to read all
three chapters that we have made available. They are very important
in helping to explain the new spirituality that has come into
Christianity through today's major Christian figures.

"A fractal . . . something considered simple
and orderly that is actually composed of
repeated patterns no matter how magnified. A
fractal is almost infinitely complex. I love
fractals, so I put them
everywhere."1--Sarayu,The Shack

"Fractals reveal a hidden "order" underlying
all seemingly chaotic events. The fractals
are intricate and beautiful. They repeat
basic patterns, but with an infinity of
variations and forms. The world-view
emerging from this scientific research is
new, and yet at the same time very very
ancient." 2--The Sovereign Court and Order of
the Ancient Dragon

Shortly after writing the previous two chapters
on Leonard Sweet and quantum spirituality, I
spoke at a church in Southern California. I had
been asked to speak at the two morning services
and then again in the evening. In the second
morning service, three women approached me and
thanked me for warning about the New Age/New
Spirituality and how it was working its way into
the church. All three told me they formerly
attended Rick Warren's
Saddleback Church, but
they had become dissatisfied and left. They said
it had been difficult to leave because so many
of their friends still went to Saddleback.

After the evening service, two more women
approached me with similar stories. One left
Saddleback the previous year and the other had
left a church she had been attending for over
thirty-seven years. This second woman, Jennifer,
had left because her former church was
introducing a mixture of Purpose Driven, church
growth, and emerging church teachings. She was
following up on comments I made about William
Paul Young's New York Times best-selling book
The Shack. I had described how The Shack's
author had introduced New Age concepts into his
emotional novel about a man's supposed encounter
with "God," "Jesus," and the "Holy Spirit" after
the brutal murder of his daughter. In the midst
of his story, Young suddenly introduces the
foundational teaching of the New Age/New
Spirituality/New World Religion--that God is
"in" everything. The Shack's "Jesus" told
Mack--the distraught father and main character
in the novel--that God is "in" all things:

"God, who is the ground of all being, dwells
in, around, and through all things."3

In speaking to the Southern California church, I
had explained that the Bible makes it clear that
God is not "in" all things. I explained that
Satan--"the god of this world"--wants everyone
to believe that God is "in" all things because
then everyone would have reason to believe that
they were God. When The Shack's "Jesus" states
that God is "in" all things, he actually
reinforces what Rick Warren has already written
in The Purpose Driven Life--that the Bible says
God is "in" everything.4 In an online article I
wrote titled "The Shack and its New Age Leaven,"
I discuss this "God in everything" aspect.5

In our brief conversation, the second woman,
Jennifer, told me she had discovered something
interesting in The Shack and had written a short
article about it. She asked if I would be
willing to read her article. I told her I would.

Fractal Theory and The Shack
Back home a week later, I found Jennifer's paper
in my notebook. I was intrigued by the
title--"Fractal Theory in The Shack." In her
article, Jennifer explains that during her
research she had rented a DVD movie, which she
had been told had New Age undertones. She then
describes something she discovered in the movie:

In the movie The Seeker a young boy is a chosen
one who is to find signs hidden throughout time,
which will help fight against the encroaching
darkness. I won't go into the plot too much but
what I will say is, in the movie, each sign that
the boy is to find is known as a fractal. When I
heard the term fractal, right away I realized
that I had heard that same term somewhere else
recently. Later on that day I remembered where I
had heard it, The Shack.

Beginning in chapter 9 in The Shack which is
titled, "A Long Time Ago in a Garden Far, Far
Away," we read about how Sarayu (who represents
the Holy Spirit) has created a garden and we
learn that the garden is a fractal. We learn
about fractals from Sarayu when she says, "A
fractal is something considered simple and
orderly that is actually composed of repeated
patterns no matter how magnified. A fractal is
almost infinitely complex. I love fractals, so I
put them everywhere."6

Curious about the term "fractal" that was
showing up in both The Shack and The Seeker,
Jennifer did some research. What she discovered
is that the term "fractal" is directly related
to what are being called the "new sciences" of
"Chaos Theory" and "Fractal Theory." What was of
particular interest to me was her finding that
fractals are directly linked with the occult
phrase "as above, so below"--the same occult/New
Age term that Eugene Peterson had mysteriously
inserted into his paraphrase of the Lord's
Prayer. And now, here was Peterson's endorsement
prominently featured on the front cover of The
Shack. Given my previously expressed concern
about Peterson's use of "as above, so below" in
The Message, I found it interesting that "as
above, so below" was apparently related to the
term fractal in The Shack and that Peterson had
so enthusiastically endorsed the book. (This is
an excerpt from Chapter 12 of
A "Wonderful" Deception.--To
continue reading more of this chapter and for
endnote material, click here.)